LAW ENFORCEMENT AGAINST PROHIBITION

During my lengthy career in law enforcement spanning three decades -
including time with U.S. Customs and the U.S. Border Patrol - I've
come to learn several sobering truths that merit attention from
parents, educators and policy makers. The most notable is that under
a system where certain drugs are made illegal, police are confronted
with two impossible assignments.

First, cops can't be effective long term as "drug educators". Despite
excellent, honest intentions, diverting police officers into this role
creates instant conflicts of vital interest.. Not only are they being
removed from their primary job as peace officers and law enforcers,
they are also being presented to our youth as a "friend" or mentor on
the topic of drugs. While a fifth grader may embrace such a pitch,
they soon become more educated teenagers. And they can easily observe
that a cop is the last person with whom they want to talk about drugs,
which often carry with them harsh criminal penalties.

Second, asking cops to stem the relentless flow of illicit drugs in
use by over 30 million Americans is pure folly. Though we may
criminalize the use or trafficking of these drugs, demand will always
be met. No matter how many Americans we arrest (currently over 4000
every 24 hours), the use of illicit drugs has remained constant over
the past 36 years of the so-called War On Drugs - aka 21st century
Prohibition.

Regardless of how many traffickers we bust, the flow of illicit drugs
cannot be stopped due to the huge profits afforded to suppliers
operating in a criminal street market. During my career, we seized
drugs by the tons and made hundreds of arrests in sweeps. Yet today
in Texas, and all of North America, these drugs are more available
than at any time in our nation's history. This is an offshoot of the
worst assured effect of the drug war. That is, the illegal drugs are
100% in the control of unregulated street cartels and gangs operating
literally worldwide.

How do we best address these two unrelenting conflicts? Quite simply,
we legalize currently illicit drugs and end the War on Drugs.

For educating our kids and adults alike, we remove cops and instead
utilize health care professionals with whom both 10 year olds and
teenagers can feel confident in either public or private discussions
about the important topics of drug use and abuse.

Ending drug Prohibition would also provide another urgently needed
benefit to our communities. It would immediately move the production
and distribution of those drugs off the streets and into a legal,
regulated setting just as that currently used for over 99.9% of all
drugs - including the risky hard drugs alcohol, tobacco and Rx
pharmaceuticals.

Legal, regulated drug dealing is not without problems. But legal drug
dealers do not operate out of residential homes. They do not
knowingly sell to minors, nor employ them in the job of drug dealing.
And most important, legal drug dealers don't wage violence against
police and civilians. Finally of course, legal drug dealers don't
require vast amounts of police resources and manpower in order to be
sensibly and safely regulated.

It is time to make better use of our police. It is time to use them
for the more important and winnable jobs of increasing public safety,
strengthening our nation's security and being viewed as public
servants with whom no American need fear honestly discussing drugs or
any other matter of community interest.